Baby Zoo Animals!

Most of my friend's aren't quite at the "baby" phase of life yet. Most of us are still getting married or buying houses, so I haven't had too many opportunities to make baby shower themed cookies. However, the "first friend in the group" just announced that she is pregnant and due in August so maybe I will be making some more baby cookies after all! I have made some animal themed cookies in the past like the elephant which is one of my favorites! 

Baby Giraffe Cookies

Giraffe Cookies

Baby Boy Themed Zebra Cookies

Little Boy Blue Elephant Cookies

Baby Zoo Animal Cookies

Wild Animal Cookies!

Puppy Love

Today is my Shiba Inu puppy, Rosie's 6 month birthday! I can't believe how big she is now compared to when we first got her! Naturally, we have got to know some of the neighborhood dogs on our walks.

Rosie 8 Weeks Old

Rosie 6 Months Old

One of her friends who she just LOVES, is a boy named Riley. Rosie can't run up to him fast enough to give him kisses and nibbles. They have such a fun time playing together. Whether it is in the grass, mud or dirt they love to romp around together.

Riley the Stud Muffin

I have come to the conclusion in my mind that Rosie has a little bit of a crush on Riley. So Rosie "helped" me make some cookies for him and give him her "number" and "email" address to set up a play date in the near feature.

So this blog post goes out to all the dog lover's out there! WOOF!

Fluffy Golden Doodle Cookies

Golden Doodle Cookies

Dog Bones (For Humans Only)

Rosie's Cookies for Riley

Rosie loves Riley

Bark Dog Bone

ARFF

"Dog goes Woof"

Don't show these pictures to your pup or else you might get "puppy eyes..." you've been warned! 

Did someone say Cookie?

Choco Chip Cookies Turn Science Experiment

My all time favorite cookie has to be the good ole semi sweet chocolate chip cookie. I love the bittersweet taste of semi-sweet VS milk chocolate. Luckily I already worked out this morning because I have devoured about a dozen of them.

What I love about this recipe is it yields chewy and crispy cookies at the same time. I don't know if that even makes any sense but just go with it. The best part about this recipe is I have had it forever! It is literally from William-Sonoma's easy kid friendly recipe book. This book happened to be my first cookie book that I got for Christmas when I think I was about 12 and also has one of my fave home made chocolate mousse recipe that I used to make all the time.

After making them, what I didn't realize, is I stumbled upon a little baking science experiment... Notice the cookies in the above picture and the below picture. What do you see? Do they look different?

The answer is YES they should look a little different. In the first picture the cookies are flatter and more spread out but the ones directly above are crispier around the edges and a little bit fluffier, if you will. 

What I found to be interesting is the 2 variables that made this happened. I used the EXACT same recipe but yielded 2 different cookie textures. Any guesses on what caused it?... the PAN. I used 2 different kind of baking sheets simply because I was being lazy and didn't want to whip on the big half sheet pans. 

The picture above is really ugly - sorry blogger is compressing it weird - but you can see the difference in the "loft" of the cookies now. 

The ones on the left I cooked on a "dark" cookie sheet and they made the cookies a little bit more crisp and not spread out as much. Typical dark cookie sheets will hold in more heat. The cookies on the right I used a "light" colored cookie sheet which doesn't hold in as much heat which caused them to spread out more and be more chewy. 

The other variable was I cooked the ones on the left on the bottom which is closer to the heat source which can also have an effect on your cookies. 

So which is the best method to making choco. chip cookies? Well it depends on your taste. Personally, I like the ones on the right better, the chewy ones. but the other ones aren't that bad either. 

Lesson to be learned here: YES THE PAN MAKES A DIFFERENCE. [Hint: When you are making sugar cookies use a LIGHT colored pan.] 

Happy Valentine's Day!

C'est l'amour! Bisou Bisou! Je t'aime! I just want to speak French all day today! The most romantic city in the world and I am half a world away. Oh well.

The past few years, Adam - the Fiance - and I have just stayed in and I have cooked a nice meal for us since V-Day fell on a week day. And this year we decided to stick to the same routine. HAH!

I am going to cook us a nice dinner, have some wine, and of course it wouldn't be complete without DESSERT!

My mom asked me to help make some special cookies for my little brother and sister's school valentine's. I LOVED Valentine's day because in school you got just as much candy and junk food AND you got to have a class party which was THE BEST DAY EVER. Haha. Well I really got in the baking spirit this holiday and decided to try out some new techniques with cookies and cake pops.

Heart Shaped Cake Balls

I tried to get these little guys above on a cake pop stick but some of them were too narrow and broke, so I decided to make cake pop balls instead and they are just as good! So if you don't want to run to the store just melt chocolate,  throw them in and voila!

Disco Dust Covered Cake Pops

Upside down cake pops are a very pretty touch to any dessert table. Personally, I still like mine in mason jars. Like below.

Valentine's Day Cake Pops

I am going to have to call this one I think my "signature design" it is my favorite, and it looks great with non- pareil sprinkles.

Be My Valentine?

Swirls

I love you!

Above is the only heart shaped cake pop I could get on a stick, so he is extra special.

Glitter Cake Pops

This is kind of my new obsession, glitter cake pops. Not going to lie though, they can make quite a mess! So you have been warned!

Whooo loves you?

I do! That whooo! Owl love you forever! I just love owls and if you know me, you know why. Hoot Hoot!

Heart Cookies

These are the cookies I made for my little brother and sister's classroom valentines. We then packaged them and I totally forgot to take a picture! rats!

90's anyone?

The above cookie we packaged and saved for all the kids that had crushes on my bro and sis OR who they have a crush on. haha. 

Kiss, Hug and Love

Ruffle Cookies

I have been wanting to learn how to make ruffle cookies for so long!! I just have been to lazy to attempt and do it. To do this you need a Wilton 104 tip and I had to google youtube videos to find a tutorial to teach me. I have to say that it only took my like 2 mess ups before I finally figure it out and I LOVE them!

Rose Petal Cookies

Fluffy Hearts

Not going to lie, I was testing out these cookies designs as a possible option for my wedding :)

Happy Valentine's Day/weekend everyone! And for those of you not with someone, Happy Singles Awareness Day. JK JK! Thanks for stopping by!! 

Kids Birthday Themes: Preppy Tennis Star & Happy Feet

When I was little I remember I had so much fun coming up with my birthday theme every year. Of course since my birthday falls during the driest week of the year in Seattle, I always had DQ ice cream cakes for the most part. I remember one year I did a rainbow themed and had a pinata (sp?), of course again because it was so hot it would be a pool party with all my friends. 

Usually the theme was what ever I was currently obsessed with. And kids today haven't changed. I recently did cookies for 2 kiddos. One was having a Penguin themed birthday. I guessed that this was something they were learning about in school of maybe he really liked all the penguin cartoon movies that have come out recently like Happy Feet. The answer, was a little bit of both. 

March of the penguins

Mr. Popper's Penguin

Happy Feet

The next cookie design was for a preppy tennis star who just turned 7! Originally the design was to do tennis rackets, but unfortunately that cutter is hard to come by in a pinch. So we opted to do pink and green bright tennis balls. The cookies themselves are obviously a simple design so I knew I needed to spice these ones up a little bit....but how??

Sparkly Tennis Balls

The answer was GLITTER! Every girl loves glitter and kids love sprinkles! To make the 7 I used Wilton vanilla (white & green colored) melts. Which I have on had for cake pops from the Super Bowl. 

Pink Sparkly Tennis Balls

To create the 7, I just "flowed" the chocolate using a piping bag and a wilton chocolate piping set, and drizzled it on a cookie sheet covered with wax paper. I then sprinkled the pink and white disco dust over the sevens and popped them in the refrigerator for maybe 5 minutes it that. 

Green Sparkly 7 Tennis Balls

Once they were down I very carefully peeled them off and they popped off pretty easily in fact. I didn't even break 1! And then I gently placed them in the middle of the cookie and pressed down on it so it would sink into the frosting more.

Glitter Tennis Balls

The feedback I got from both moms was great and I am so happy the kiddos liked the cookies for their special day!